Gardening With Dogs - 5 Ways Your Dog Can Help Your Green Thumb
Guest Written by - Kaitlynn from MIgardener
Every dog owning gardener is familiar with this scenario: being greeted at the door by your energetic, loving, joyful, compost-covered man's best friend!
Normally our energy towards our dogs as gardeners is focused on keeping them out of the garden. Today, we'll be learning about how having a dog can be helpful in the garden. I'll get to introduce you to some very helpful friends along the way.
Paws on Jobs for Dogs:
Keeping Pests Away
Did you know that dog hair has been proven to keep garden pests away? Collect your dog's hair after every brush and form a nest around your most vulnerable plants. This will trap snails and slugs and keep them from getting to your produce. To keep bigger animals away use your dog's hair and lay it down in or around your garden and the scent will keep rabbits, gophers, and deer away. They will think your dog is just around the corner! You can even go around to local pet grooming shops to gather hair, they are usually more than welcome to let you take it off their hands.
Tilling the Soil
"I knew you didn't need all those rocks." Dogs are excellent diggers. Some search for bones, others search for rodent nests, while others just dig because why not? Dogs love to dig, so train your dog to dig your holes so you don't have to ever use a shovel again.
Watering
Training your dog to water the garden will allow you more time to kick back and relax! Save this chore till last so your dog can also give itself a bath before coming indoors all muddy. Not to mention, aren't those pants the cutest?!?!
Deadheading the Flowers
One of the only things that dogs are better at than digging is rolling! Rolling around your flower beds, to be precise. On the bright side, all those flowers that were there are now deadheaded... or just dead. Maybe not the most helpful, but at least you are spending time with your dog! Plus, a shot like this one just makes the dog look so elegant and innocent.
Planting Potatoes
This is Lemon. Lemon broke the internet in 2014 with his amazing gardening skills. Every gardener wishes they had a dog like Lemon. Start training!
Lemon's favorite thing to do is plant potatoes in the garden. More on Lemon here .
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To be perfectly honest, sometimes it can be difficult to balance a love for gardening with a love for our dogs. It's important to remember, in those moments where you are washing stinky fertilizers from your yellow lab's magnificent coat, that your dog is an extension of your family. Therefore they are an extension of your home and as a result; your garden.
They only wish to bring you joy, even if that means occasionally following their instincts. Dogs just wanna have fun, as they say.
What are some ways you help your dog build a healthy relationship with your garden?
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